


Chariot

by theyknowkaee



Category: Now You See Me (Movies)
Genre: Character(s) of Color, F/M, Female Character of Color, I'm Bad At Tagging, Magic, Now You See Me - Freeform, OOC, Original Character-centric, Out of Character, Protective Jack Wilder, Siblings, Spoilers, Swearing, updates aren't very frequent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-07-19 07:47:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 19,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7352260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theyknowkaee/pseuds/theyknowkaee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Okay, lovebirds. Get a room.” Henley interrupted. “Danny, be honest, did you do this?”</p><p>“If you did, that’s a dick move, bro.” I added.</p><p>“No. Wait. Did you?” He pointed at Jack, who had the ‘kid in the candy store without his parents’ look on his face. “No. Well, I wish.”</p><p>They all looked at me, and I widened my eyes in mock surprise. “Dammit, you caught me. I definitely took the time out of my day to somehow get you all tarot cards and bring you, 3 people who I don’t know plus my brother, to this dingy ass apartment to have a good laugh.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

As more people boarded the ferry, I turned to Jack. “I got the spoon,” I whispered, turning it around in my hand. “and while I distract the poor bastard, you grab the wallet, I’ll give the money, and we get the hell out of Dodge before they notice. Got it? Good.” We walked to the front of the boat, and I quickly scanned the audience.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” Jack shouted to the audience. The people looked at us, questioningly.

“We are the next greatest magicians, and we are prepared to give $100 dollars to anyone who can tell us how this trick is done.” I held up two $50 dollar bills. The mention of money piqued everyone’s interests. I internally rolled my eyes. I almost felt bad for the person who tried to claim this prize. Keyword: almost. Jack gestured to me as I held up the stolen spoon.

“This is an ordinary spoon from Mel’s Deli, right here in Brooklyn. Check it out.” I knocked the spoon against the railing of the boat.

“Now everyone pay very, very close attention,” I held the spoon closer to my face and wiggled my fingers. “Because I’m about to bend this spoon with my mind.”

I suppressed a laugh as the crowd gasped when the spoon bent in my hand. Jack smirked and winked at me. _Showtime._

“Thank you, thank you. Pass that around.” I said, and I handed the spoon off to the person closest to me.

A man with dark, curly hair and square-framed glasses came up to me, smirking. He roughly grabbed my shoulder and Jack asked “What are you doing, man?” If this wasn’t part of the trick, he would’ve been over the railing and into the water by now.

I faked a look of concern as he pulled the spoon from my back pocket and the stem from my bomber jacket sleeve.

“Looks like we got a spoon and a stem.” He lifts the two pieces of the spoon up, and the crowd starts to boo. I actually rolled my eyes this time. Did they honestly think that I used my mind to bend a spoon?

Jack stepped forward and palmed his wallet in the process. “We have other tricks.”

“Or you could give me my 100 bucks.” The guy tightened his grip on my shoulder. Just for that, I took his watch too. Hope the 100 bucks buys him a new one.

I handed him the money. “You have a good eye, sir.” I sneered. Prick deserved to get his shit stolen.

We jogged down the ferry stairs, and a guy in a hoodie was standing in the middle of them. We went on opposite sides of him, and speed walked to the dock. When we were halfway across, the douche finally realized we stole his stuff.

“Stop those kids! Stop those kids in the leather jackets, they’ve got my wallet!” Jack and I laughed as we ran to the shoreline.

“You did good.” Jack smiled when we finally made it to our destination. He pulled the wallet from his back pocket.

“I know.” I smirked, as I pulled the watch from my jacket pocket. Jack looked at me incredulously. “What?” I asked. “You saw how he grabbed me, the asshole deserved it.” He just shook his head while taking the money out of the wallet. As he threw the wallet in the water, I noticed something else in his pocket.

“What’s that?” Jack reached into his pocket and pulled out… a tarot card?

I fumbled around in my jacket pockets. “Hey, I have one too. What does yours say?”

“Death.” He replied, frowning in confusion.

“I got The Chariot.” I remarked. Turning the card over, I noticed that there was an eye on the back.

“Holy shit. Do you think this is from-“

“The eye.” He finished. “March 29, 4:44 pm, 4 East Evan St. NY, NY. What do you think the tarots mean?”

“Y’know, I dabbled in tarot reading a bit. Enough to know that there are two meanings to every card.”

“Jillian.” Jack said, slowly. Sometimes I hate our parents. I was adopted as a baby, so they got to name me. Of all names, they chose to name their youngest children Jackson and Jillian, or Jack and Jill. I internally roll my eyes again at the thought.

“Yeah?”

“We’re about to possibly join the eye.”

-

About a week later, on March 29, the anticipation was finally getting to me. I almost woke up at a decent hour. Alas, nothing but the internet can keep me from my sleep, and I woke up at my usual 1:00 pm on my off days.

I have a job as a nurse at a local doctor’s office, and I do my magic on the side. Jack, however, pickpockets full time, which is fine with me. We do what we have to do to get the rent paid (even though I make enough to pay it all, Jack won’t let me).

When I finally rolled out of bed after playing Kendall and Kylie and checking Snapchat for 30 minutes (I'm a grown woman I swear), I brushed my teeth and went to the kitchen, automatically searching for caffeine. 

“The beast awakens.” Jack gasps, in fake shock.

“Shut up, dickhead.” I groan. Caffeine. Need it. Now.

“Hey, be nice. I brought you Starbucks. Venti Vanilla Bean Frappe with 2 pumps of Cinnamon Dolce and two pumps of White Mocha. You are so very welcome.” He hands me my heaven in a cup.

“Have I mentioned how much I love you, Jackson Wilder?” This frappe is a godsend. It tastes exactly like a cinnamon roll.

“Yeah, but it’s good to hear it every now and again.” He jokes. I finish my orgasm inducing drink in 5 minutes, and go to take a shower.

As I showered, I thought about our whole situation. Why is the eye just now contacting us, when we’ve been doing this since we learned magic a few years after our parents died. Did they contact anyone else? And what is going to happen at this meeting?

When I checked the time, it had been an hour, so I decided to finally get out. My curly hair would not be tamed, so I just left it big. I put on a Captain America tank top (because who doesn’t love cap?), some black ripped jeans, and my black bomber jacket from when we first got the tarot cards. Since we had 2 hours to kill, why not play a game?

“Oh Jackaboy!” I sang as I slid on my red, white, and blue Huaraches. Then, I switched to my Saw voice. “Let’s play a game.”

“I’m listening.” He said, sitting on the couch.

“Since we have time to kill, we’re gonna walk to the Chipotle a few blocks away. On the way, we’re gonna see who can grab the most cash.” I smiled, evilly. “We count up at the Chipotle, and loser buys lunch. Deal?”

Jack smirked. “You’re on.”

-

“Fuck.” I exclaimed. We had arrived at the Chipotle and counted up the money. “I lost by $1 dollar. 1. I demand a recount.”

“No can do, sis. You lost fair and square. I want a burrito bowl, extra chicken.”

I groaned. “You know that costs more money.”

Jack just winked at me. “I got $453 dollars. I’m pretty sure that you can afford extra chicken, even if you only got $452.”

The bastard.

After I begrudgingly paid for our food, we sat down and ate.

“In a little over an hour, we’re about to show up at a random address that was on a tarot card.” He said in disbelief.

I snorted. “I won’t even be upset if people have no sympathy when we get kidnapped. ‘2 New Yorkers get kidnapped after showing up at mystery location on card’. I can see the headlines now.”

“We won’t get kidnapped. I’ll protect you.” Even when we were younger, we understood how the system worked. So, when our parents died when we were 17 and 16 (me being the oldest), we decided to run away. We eventually made it from New Jersey to New York and started pickpocketing. Around this time is when we really picked up magic. Jack was always more into cards and sleight, while I wanted to learn it all. Now, Jack is an expert on sleight and he can throw cards like nobody else (except maybe me), and I dabble a bit in everything. A bit of illusionism here, some mentalism there. I’m close to mastering it all, but not quite. I have a steady job, and we both still pickpocket, not quite growing out of it yet.

“I’m pretty sure that it’s the other way around, broski.” I smiled.

Jack just hummed in response. We threw away our trash and still had an hour before we needed to meet. I know this area like the back of my hand, and calculated that it would take us about 45 minutes to walk to the meeting place.

“We better leave now.” Jack said, looking at the watch that I stole from the prick a week ago. “Don’t wanna be late.”

“A magician is never late, nor is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to.” I quote.

“You are such a nerd.” He laughs as he bumps my shoulder.

-

We arrive at Evan Street at exactly 4:44 because someone *cough Jack cough* got caught trying to steal someone’s wallet from their back pocket. We had to hide for 10 minutes to throw them off.

“Oookay. So, apparently, none of us was the only one chosen. Let me be the first one to kick my ego to the curb.” Jack and I heard as we walked up the stairs. I pulled him to a stop and put a finger over my lips to let him know he needs to shut the fuck up.

“Uh, excuse me.” Jack’s eyes widened. Okay, so that was J. Daniel Atlas. Jack is a huge fan of his, but he always seemed a bit arrogant to me.

“Door’s locked.” The first voice said.

“I’ll check.” I rolled my eyes at him.

“You- Now, hold it, don’t tell me. Uh... Helen? No, no…. Henley.” The first voice said to another person. So 3 others were chosen.

“It’s on your coffee cup.” Atlas added.

“Thanks for keeping me honest. But that wasn’t mentalism, by the way. That was just an observation. Second observation: you are beautiful.” Jack rolled his eyes at that one.

“Thank you.” I quietly thanked the heavens. There was another female in this group. I don’t know what I would’ve done if I was surrounded by testosterone. I got chills even thinking about the prospect.

“Okay that’s very nice. Very well polished. Nice bit. J. Daniel Atlas. Nice to meet you.” There was a brief pause. “Very nice.” Jack raised an eyebrow at me, questioning when we were going to go up. I held up one finger and continued to listen.

“I know who you are and I just wanna say, I’m not interested in you doing your, uh, your mentalism thing on us, especially when we don’t know who brought us here or even if it’s real.” While Atlas was saying this, the first man was shushing him.

“Hold on, I’m sensing… I’m sensing you are a control freak.”

“I’m sorry, have we met before?”

“It doesn’t take a mentalist to figure that out. You are a control freak.” The woman added.

“Well I take that as a compliment.” Atlas replied.

“Only _he_ would take it as a compliment.”

“Okay, great. Good. Another compliment.”

“Wow."

“Okay, so that’s why you’re no longer a couple.” The other man intervened.

“Couple? Oh no no, we were never a couple.” They sputter, almost in sync. I smirked.

“He used to... saw me in half.” Henley continued.

“She was a very good assistant.” Atlas quickly added.

“Yeah, but I was too fat for Danny.”

“No, I said that _one_ time because of the- because of the trap door. Narrow space.”

“You built it this size,” she said, presumably gesturing. "No one could fit through there. No one.”

“Rebecca fit through there. Rebecca fit through there for years.”

“Do you know how hard it is to stay in those tiny little costumes?”

“Uh no. I’m the main attraction.” I scoffed quietly. Jackass.

“Okay so, he never made you feel special, and trust me, you deserve to be made to feel special.”

“Really- really nice story. I hope you guys enjoy each other’s company.”

At this point, Jack got restless and went up the stairs, and I quickly followed.

“No way.” He muttered. “J. Daniel Atlas? Dude, I have seen everything that you have ever done. You’re like- I-I idolize you. Seriously.” I rolled my eyes for what feels like the umpteenth time. While he had his fanboy moment, I surveyed everyone else.

Henley was about my height with red hair. I realized that I had seen her before- she’s an escape artist. The other man was taller with a fedora on. The mentalist, I presumed. And, of course, J. Daniel Atlas- the illusionist.

“I’m Jack, by the way, and this is my sister, Jill.”

Daniel raised his eyebrow and was about to say something. I cut him off before he could. “As you can tell, I am considerably darker than him, so it’s not by blood. I’m adopted.”

The mentalist snorted. “You have got to be kidding me. Remind me to ask your parents why they cursed you with such names.”

I just stared at him. “I would, but they’re dead. Makes it kinda difficult, don’t you think?”

Everyone had gone quiet, and I had to resist the urge to smirk. After about 10 seconds of awkward silence, fedora guy spoke again.

“Umm…. Question. Did you get one of these?” He pointed to his tarot card.

Jack dug around in his pockets. “Yeah, um, yeah. Death.” He held it up for everyone.

Henley held up her card. “The High Priestess.”

“The Lover.” Daniel smirked.

Henley coughed. *Three minutes*

He dropped the smirk.

“Hermit.” Fedora muttered.

They all looked at me. I pulled my own card from my jacket pocket and looked at it, curiously. What could a man, sitting in a chariot mean?

“The Chariot.” I showed my card to them.

Jack stuttered nervously. “So, what are we- are we- we waiting for someone? Why- why are we- “

“The door’s locked.” Daniel and Henley said in unison. I raised my eyebrow in question. These two definitely had some history together.

“Oh, no, nothing- nothing’s ever locked.” Jack went and picked the lock. “Nice.” I patted him on the head. He mock glared at me, and then we walked in the room.

“What is this place?” Henley asked.

We all peered into the bathroom, and I immediately walked away. It was covered and dirt and other mystery substances, and several bugs were in there, not to mention that it smelled like death and misery.

“And I thought my apartment was nasty.” Fedora (whose name I learned was Merritt) muttered.

“Man it’s freezing in here.” Jack mumbled as I pulled my jacket closer to me.

We finally came to a room that was larger than the others. It was completely empty, except for a symbol engraved into the floor, a piece of paper, a white rose, and a vase.

Henley gestured to the paper. “What’s that?”

“I don’t know.” Daniel answered. He picked up the paper.

“What does it say?” Merritt asked.

“’Now you don’t.’” He read aloud.

I went and picked up the flower. “A rose by any other name.” I whispered, and dropped it into the vase.

The water started to drain out of the vase onto the floor, towards the symbol.

“Guys, what’s happening?” Jack asked. Nobody answered.

“Woah.” Merritt said as the water started to fill the symbol.

When the water filled it, the symbol went down and gas came out. I looked like it was just from dry ice, so it should be harmless.

“It’s gas.” Jack exclaimed while pushing me back.

“Relax, it’s just dry ice.” I stepped forward again.

Jack took his bag off and sat it on the ground.

“Cool.” Henley said.

“Wait.” Daniel looked up. “What do you think this is all about?”

Merritt touched a hand to his head. “Hang on, hang on.”

We all looked at him, hoping he had an answer.

“Yeah I got nothing.”

“Okay thank you. Thank you for the delay.” Daniel replied, and I snorted.

“I’m just trying to create the space for wisdom.” Merritt defended.

“Okay, so you’re like Buddha, if he wasn’t so enlightened.”

“And you’re like Jesus if he was arrogant and all his miracles were fake.” I just laughed at them. These are grown men, fighting like children.

“Okay, lovebirds. Get a room.” Henley interrupted. “Danny, be honest, did you do this?”

“If you did, that’s a dick move, bro.” I added.

“No. Wait. Did you?” He pointed at Jack, who had the ‘kid in the candy store without his parents’ look on his face. “No. Well, I wish.”

They all looked at me, and I widened my eyes in mock surprise. “Dammit, you caught me. I definitely took the time out of my day to somehow get you all tarot cards and bring you, 3 people who I don’t know plus my brother, to this dingy ass apartment to have a good laugh.”

"Why does that seem like something you would actually do?" Jack asked. 

I just elbowed him. "Shut up."

“Why didn’t anyone ask if I did it?” Merritt whined. None of us said anything. “Oh. Oh, great.”

“Electricity’s out.” Jack said.

“Let’s check.” Merritt screwed a light bulb in, and it turned on. Suddenly, blue lights were coming from the walls and in the middle of the room they showed blueprints.

“Blueprints.” Henley breathed.

“They’re incredible.” Daniel added.

“Who do you think did this?” I questioned.

“I don’t know, but I really wanna meet them.” She paused. “It’s a show.”

A show that included all five of us working together and a team called The Five Horsemen.


	2. Manigances

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is just me, or is reading your own writing extremely cringeworthy? 
> 
> Well, since I already had it written up somewhere on my laptop, here's the official chapter one.
> 
> The title of this chapter is the French word for 'Shenanigans'.

~ 7 Months Later ~

We were all sat in various places in Jack and I’s apartment. We were supposed to be staying at that shithole that we met at, but literally no. There was no way in hell that I was staying there, plus there’s enough space here; 2 bedrooms, a couch with a pullout bed, and 2 very comfortable chairs.

“So, here’s the plan,” Atlas said, right before he was going to go through the plan again. I groaned audibly. Merritt was right. He is a control freak.

“I’m pretty sure everyone is aware of the plan. You did go through it 10 times already.” I belly flopped onto the couch, where Henley was. Jack was on the floor, shuffling his cards and occasionally throwing one to me, and I’d throw it back. Merritt was on one of the chairs while Daniel occupied the other one.

“Well maybe if you looked at me while I was talking instead of being on your phone I could tell that you were listening.” He snapped. I just looked around in mock confusion.

“I’m sorry, I was just trying to figure who you’re talking to because it obviously isn’t me. Because if you were talking to me, I wouldn’t hesitate to sock you in your jaw, and I don’t think you want that.” I made myself look as menacing as possible while looking him directly in the eyes.

He nodded quickly, and Merritt and Jack we trying not to laugh. “Great, now let’s go through the plan one more time, for Daniels sake.” I just smiled sweetly when he scowled at me. “So, we fly to France in one month’s time. Étienne is still exactly where we need him to be, so Merritt does his thing first. Daniel walks by with the poker chip, and Henley gets his measurements. Jack and I do our thing and boom. Mission Accomplished.”

“How do you suggest that we get the money? We know which truck is coming when- but how are we going to get in?” Henley asked.

“We could pose as security,” Jack suggested.

“And hijack the truck before it even leaves for the bank.” Daniel finished. He was obviously lost in thought, the way his eyebrows furrowed occasionally and he just stared at nothing. Now that I think about it, he’s not ugly. Sure he’s an asshole, but he’s a cute one, which makes it slightly better. I sighed. I do not need to be thinking about Danny that way. I’m not gonna act like an idiot and try to deny any feelings that I may or may not have, though.

“I got it!” We shouted at the same time. An awkward silence came over the room.

“You go first; we might have the same idea.” He said.

“Okay.” I started. “Merritt and Jack can pretend to be security. They’ll ride behind the truck, and Merritt hypnotizes the driver- “

Danny cut me off. “Henley drives another car with euros made of flash paper inside of duffel bags. Jill and I will hide under the real euros inside the truck until Merritt does his thing. We knock the guards inside of the truck out if necessary. When it’s safe, we’ll come out- “

I cut him off this time. “And put the real money into other duffel bags and load those into the car. Then we organize the flash paper euros to look like the real ones in the truck. We stick a ticket stub from our show and Étienne’s card at the bottom and voila.”

“The flash paper burns inside of the actual Crédit Républicain de Paris, leaving the ticket stub and card, and the real money comes up from the fake vault and into the crowd.” Danny finishes.

Everyone just looked at us. “What?” I asked, even though I was pretty sure what the looks were.

“Nothing.” Jack shakes his head. “We’re actually about to rob a bank.”

-

About 4 and a half months later, two weeks before the show, the horsemen were boarding a plane to Paris. We wanted to rob the bank on the weekend of our show so the bank wouldn’t open until after we performed. So, we were robbing the truck on the bank’s closing night, and after they put the flash paper into the vault, it would burn up, and on opening day, they would just see the card and the ticket stub.

We didn’t get to pick out seats (damn you coach), so Henley luckily got a row to herself while Jack was with Merritt and I got stuck with Atlas.

I like to look outside during flights. Something about being miles above everything made it look so beautiful. I pressed my face to the window like a child to watch the takeoff. Sleeping on a plane is something that I never like to do until it’s near the landing time. Landing is by far the worst part of flying.

After an hour or so, I got tired of looking at the same ocean, so I pulled out my laptop and decided to watch Netflix. I wanted to watch Supernatural, but there are _10 seasons._ I can’t binge watch that much. I settled for Sherlock since there aren’t too many episodes of that.

45 minutes into the first episode, I noticed that Danny was watching my screen. I sighed. If he wanted to watch, he could’ve just asked.

I paused it and turned to him. “Do you wanna listen? Or are you just gonna stare at the screen?” He looked a bit flustered.

“Yeah- yeah sure.” I handed him one of my earbuds and we watched together. We had all paid for the in-plane Wi-Fi so we could communicate if necessary, and my phone vibrated with a text from Henley.

I opened the message and it was a picture of me and Danny, sitting really close (just to watch Netflix I swear) with the caption _Relationship Goals._ I fake smiled in her direction. _Go to sleep._

After a few more episodes, Danny fell asleep. Some turbulence caused his head to roll onto my shoulder. _Please let nobody have seen that._ My internal prayer came true, because everyone near us was already asleep. I took the earbud from him and closed my laptop. It was getting closer to landing time anyway; might as well get some sleep too.

-

I am an extremely heavy sleeper, so it took being pushed out of my seat to wake me up.

“What the actual fuck?” I asked, groggily. If only I had my pocketknife. You don’t mess with my food or my sleep, and if you do, you get stabbed.

“Why were you laying on me?” Danny demanded, raising his eyebrow. It was too early to be dealing with this foolishness.

“Um, if I recall correctly, which I do, _you_ were the one laying on _me_.” I rolled my eyes as I stood up. The plane was mostly empty, so we probably landed a few minutes ago.

“Technically, you were laying on each other.” Merritt pulled up a picture on his phone of us, looking a bit too cuddly.

We didn’t have the armrest in between us because we were watching Netflix together, And I somehow ended up in the space that it would’ve occupied. His arm was around my shoulder, and mine was around his waist, so I was basically hugging him. My head ended up on his shoulder, and his was on top of mine. It was actually a cute picture, and I held back a smile.

“You dickheads.” I muttered. I grabbed my laptop and put it into its bag. “Atlas, stop looking confused and move your ass. All day is something that I don’t have.” He snapped out of whatever trance he was in and scowled at me.

We all exited the plane, and I was starting to feel the effects of my lack of caffeine. “You jackasses get our bags; I’m going to purchase the holy liquid that is coffee. Gimme your orders, children.” I already knew Jack’s and Henley’s, because we often walked to Starbucks together when Merritt and Daniel were being too unmanageable. “Just black coffee for me, sweetheart.” Merritt winked at me and I laughed.

Danny rolled his eyes. “I’m coming with. You’ll probably get mine wrong anyway.” I just completely ignored him and walked to the currency exchange. He ran after me while I was exchanging the money. I spoke a bit of French, and said to the person behind the desk, “Bonjour, je dois échanger 3,000 USD en euros, s’il vous plait.” We had all combined our money to use for food and a hotel for the two weeks that we would be here.

“Pas de problème.” He replied, handing me the euros, and taking my USD.

“Merci, bonne journée.” I walked towards the nearest Starbucks with Danny trailing after me. “I didn’t know that you spoke French. What did you say?”

I smirked. “Hello, I have to exchange 3,000 USD in EUR, please. Thanks, have a good day. And I’m not fluent, but I know the basics.”

We went into the Starbucks, and luckily, the cashiers spoke English. I ordered Jack’s Latte Macchiato, Henley’s Cinnamon Dolce Latte, Merritt’s black coffee, and my Cinnamon Roll frappe. I turned to Danny, waiting for him to say whatever complicated order that he thought I wasn’t prepared to order for him.

This idiot just ordered an Expresso. “And I was going to get that wrong how?”

He just scowled at me. I added 5 breakfast sandwiches to our order, and it came to about €20 Euros.

“We come bearing gifts.” I said when we walked up to the rest of the group, Starbucks in hand. They practically snatched their food and drinks from us, and Danny and I laughed. “The savages.” He laughed.

“You would think that they’ve never eaten.” I added. “Come on, kiddos. We have a show to put on!”


	3. Grand Theft 3 Million Euros

When we arrived in our hotel room, I immediately called dibs on the nearest bed that I saw. We weren’t too high-maintenance, so we only got one room with 2 queen-sized beds and a couch. Danny called the couch, and Jack and Merritt agreed to share the other bed, so Henley and I shared the one that I called.

I sat for a minute before saying, “I’m bored. Who wants to go sightsee with moi?”

“You and Danny were the only ones who really got any good sleep, so you two go. We need rest.” Jack gave a sly smirk.

“Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I see what you’re doing, you menace.” I pointed an accusing finger at him. He’s trying to set Danny and I up. I’m not opposed to it, but it should happen naturally. If it happens at all.

Jack holds his hands up in a placating gesture. “I’m not doing anything.” I squinted at him and sighed. I can’t win with this child.

“Well I’m going to the Eiffel Tower,” I announced, grabbing my jacket. “If you want to come with, hurry up.”

I was halfway out the door when Danny ran after me. “Can’t have you running around Paris alone. Not safe.” He said. I just grabbed his wrist and dragged him to the door. “We don’t have all day, Atlas. Move your ass.”

-

We stood at the base of the tower, looking up.

“We’re going to the top,” I stated. I had to get a picture up there.

“But the line for the elevator is so long,” Danny complained. I rolled my eyes.

“Obviously, we’re taking the stairs.” He looked at me incredulously.

“Are you insane? There are 704 steps.”

“We better get moving then.” I grabbed his hand and pulled him up the stairs.

After about 500 steps, I realized that this was a mistake. We had already passed the second elevator, and my legs were burning like hell.

“Dannnyyyyyy,” I whined. “Do you wanna help a sister out?”

He sighed. “Get on my back.”

“Have I ever mentioned that I love you, Daniel Atlas?” I joked. He seemed like a grade-A douchebag when we first met, but he’s actually not all that bad. Douchebag is just his natural mindset.

He laughed and started carrying me up the stairs. I took some selfies while I was on his back and sent them to Henley with the caption _The queen never walks up the stairs; the peasants carry her._

He ended up carrying me the rest of the way, and I got off at the very top. “Thanks, babe,” I muttered, absentmindedly. The view from up there was gorgeous. It felt like you could see the whole city.

“Did you- did you just call me babe?” He asked in disbelief.

“No.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Then why did you ask that dumbass question if you heard me the first time?”

He just smirked. “I don’t know _babe_.”

“Don't mock me, you prick. Just for that, you’re carrying me down.”

He groaned.

When we got to the bottom, I decided to mess with him. “Thanks, babe.” Then I smirked and kissed the corner of his mouth. I will not be outdone. He froze, and I just walked back in the direction of the hotel, laughing evilly.

-

After we got settled for a week (which included pandering from Henley as to how J. Daniel Atlas was speechless), we put in our earpieces to go hypnotize the Frenchman. They were really expensive, and I would’ve opted for some cheaper ones, but this was Arthur Tressler’s money, so what the hell. The whole time that we’ve been here, I was observing Étienne; seeing what he does on a daily basis, and finding out where he spends most of his time.

We took a cab to where Étienne was going to be.

“Étienne is going to be here at any moment,” Danny said. “Once we see him, Merritt, you do your thing. I’ll follow with the poker chip, and Henley will get his measurements. Jack, you hold up the money, and Jill will close by hypnotizing him, to make sure he gets the specifics. Got it?” We all nodded and saw Étienne rounding the corner at the top of the stairs. “Showtime,” Merritt whispered, and we all got in our places.

Merritt rounded the corner just after the Frenchman did. “Viva Las Vegas.” Étienne just looked confused but kept walking down the stairs.

Danny followed, flipping a poker chip into the air twice. While he was watching the chip Henley bumped into him, mumbling and apology in French. “I got his measurements.”

Jack walked up, pretending to be on the phone, and he held up a big wad of cash. “I won it all in Vegas.” He winked at Étienne. Now I was up. When we were out of sight, I smacked him lightly on the back of the neck and pulled his ear towards my mouth. “Sleep,” I whispered to him, and he was out. “When you go back to your home, you will pull this ticket stub from your pocket,” I slipped a ticket to our Vegas show into his pocket. “You’ll buy a plane ticket, and book your hotel. When you come to our show, you’ll be asked to pick a card. The 2 of hearts; that’s the one you’ll choose. When I snap my fingers, you won’t remember me, or being hypnotized.” I quickly lifted his head up and snapped my fingers by his ear. “Au revoir,” I said to him, as he looked at me confused. I walked up the stairs to the other horsemen. 

“Alright, we finished step one. What’s next?”

Turns out, stealing the money is what was next.

When Jack had walked by Étienne, He had taken his credit card with his signature on it. Now, we could make the card look a bit more personal. I had the signed playing card and a ticket stub in my pocket as Danny and I lay under the about €3 Million Euros. We were packed pretty tightly, and being completely still was annoying. I subconsciously started to bounce my leg, and Danny reached over and put his hand on my thigh. I froze, and looked at him, my brown eyes looking into his blue ones. He was leaning in, and so was I. Our lips were about to meet when the truck jerked to a stop. Our eyes opened, and we just looked at each other. The officer that was in the truck stood up, and I stabbed a needle into his ankle. I winced. That needle went straight through his pants, there was no way that it remained sterile. I hope that he didn’t get any diseases from that.

“Let’s go.” Danny pushed up, and the money fell off of us. Merritt and Jack opened the door to the truck, and Henley walked up holding duffel bags. “Hey, boys… and girl.” I laughed, and we started filling the bags with the real money. We threw those bags into the car and started putting the flash paper money into the truck. “We are robbing a bank; we are robbing a bank.” I sang quietly. After we organized the money correctly, I put the card and the ticket stub at the bottom. We stepped back and just looked at the masterpiece.

“Guys. We actually just robbed a bank.” Jack breathed, and a smile crept onto my face. “I’m a felon! That’s all I ever wanted in life!” They all laughed at me, and we shut the truck doors. The guy that I drugged was still laying on the floor, and if he doesn’t have any life-threatening diseases from that contaminated needle, he should wake up in a few hours.

Merritt woke the driver back up and made him forget about ever seeing us, and we all got in the car with the money. It was kind of a tight fit, so Henley drove, Jack called shotgun, and Merritt, Danny, and I were stuck in the back with duffel bags taking up their own seat. I was pushed against the window, with my legs across Danny’s lap and my feet on Merritt’s.

“Ooh, I am going to get so wasted tonight.” Everyone laughed like I was joking. “I am so serious, by the way. Vodka shots tonight, on me! We’re going straight for the hard stuff.”

“This isn’t going to end well.” Jack groaned, and I smiled.


	4. Act I

We had gotten the money back to Vegas without a hitch, and we were backstage before the show.

The team was sitting in a dressing room, going over the plans again. Daniel spoke first. “So we’ll get introduced, and on a screen, Jack and Jill will throw cards at the camera at the same time. Our symbol appears, and we walk out in the order that we were announced.”

“We go out, swap the balls and such, Merritt hypnotizes Étienne, we ‘teleport’ him to France, money falls from the sky, then we go back to the hotel to wait for the feds to show up. This is boring; we already know the plan.” I whined, throwing cards back and forth with Jack.

Danny smiled, sarcastically. “Well, we don’t want to screw up our first show. I’m not going to let you keep me from joining the Eye.” I just scoffed. Was this not the same guy who tried to kiss me a few months ago?

“I could just expose you right now,” I said, cryptically.

“5 MINUTES!” One of the employees called. We all got up, and I snickered at our clothes. We actually looked like magicians. Instead of wearing something similar to Henley’s blazer and skirt, I wore a Zatanna costume. I straightened my hair and dyed it black over the burgundy that I had previously. I wore the white button up over a black leotard, black bow tie, black fishnets, and black knee high boots. The look was completed with white gloves, black tailcoat, and top hat.

Danny was eyeing me. “Take a picture; it’ll last longer.” I winked at him, and his face flushed.

We stood by the camera and waited to be announced. “I’m nervous as hell right now,” I remarked.

“That makes all of us,” Merritt muttered. “Good luck to everyone, and please, don’t screw up.”

 _3,2,1._ The cameraman mouthed. _Go time._

“Merritt McKinney.” The announcer said, and Merritt walked in front of the camera, with a serious face.

“Daniel Atlas.” Danny walked up, with a fan blowing his hair back. I had to stop myself from laughing.

“Henley Reeves.” She walked up, with the fan blowing on her too.

“Jack Wilder,” Jack smirked at the camera. I blew out a breath. _And here we go._

“Jillian Wilder.” I walked up, put my hat on, and winked at the camera.

The five of us walked forward together as the camera moved further away from us.

“Arthur Tressler and the MGM Grand proudly present,” Jack and I each threw a card at the same time towards the camera. “The Five Horsemen.”

We walked onto the stage, in that order.

“Thank you,” Merritt said. “Tonight we would like to try something that will- well- set us a bit apart.” He walked across the stage.

Henley walked down the stairs. “For our final trick, we’re gonna do something never before seen on a Las Vegas stage.”

“Or any stage, for that matter,” Jack added.

Danny walked across the front of the stage. “Ladies and gentlemen,” He jogged up the stairs. “Tonight, we are going to rob a bank.” The crowd erupted into cheers as he held his arms open and clapped. I laughed.

“That’s a lot of excitement for a crime,” I stated, walking to the left of the stage. The audiences laughed, and I did a little bow.

“I’m getting excited, what about you people?” Henley yelled. The crowd cheered again. 

Jack and Merritt walked up to each other. “1,2,3!” And they high fived. Henley and I sighed. “Boys.” We said in unison, to another laugh from the crowd.

“Okay, okay. No, please. Please, settle down. Now, who here has a bank that they would like us to rob?” The audience screamed, raising their hands. Merritt, Henley, and I went off to the side to grab the ping pong balls with the section, row, and seat numbers on them.

“That’s a lot of people with a vendetta,” Danny muttered. “We’ll choose one at random then. My associates will make sure that it’s random, right?”

I went to the left side of the stage to get someone to pick a ball. A girl reached up, and I crouched. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

“Anabelle!” She smiled.

“How old are you, Ana?”

“I’m this many year.” She held up five fingers. I smiled.

“Do you want to pick one?”

She just reached her hand in and grabbed a ball. “Thanks, Ana.” I quickly swapped that ball with the one in my sleeve.

“In Jill’s bowl are ping pong balls with section letters.” I threw the ball to Jack. “Can you hand me a section letter please?” Jack tossed the ball to Danny, and he let it bounce before catching it.

“I think we are looking at section B. Where is section B?” The light shone on that section, and they cheered. “Okay, there. It’s gonna be one of you guys, so get ready.” I put my bowl down and walked towards Danny and slipped him a Sharpie. “For Étienne to sign the card with,” I whispered, and walked to Merritt. “I don’t know why everyone’s happy, it's only them.” Danny resumed.

“Merritt, can I get a row please?” Merritt threw his ball to me after he swapped it, and I tossed it to Danny. “Thank you, Jill, we are looking at,” He turned the ball upside down and squinted. “Row number 5?” He asked. The people in that row cheered. “And- uh, Henley can I please have a random seat number?” Henley switched her ball and threw it to Danny. “Oh! Lucky number 13. B-5-13, where are you?” I silently prayed that Étienne was in the correct seat. “Sir, please stand up.” My prayers were answered as the Frenchman stood up. “Ah, there you are. Hi.” Someone handed him a microphone. “Can you just confirm for me that this is, in fact, your seat? B-5-13?” He turned around quickly. “Yes.”

Danny threw the balls somewhere. “Okay, wonderful. Now, could you please tell us your name and the name of your bank?”

“Well, my name is, uh, Étienne Forcier and my bank is, uh, Crédit Républicain de Paris.”

“French. Okay.” Danny said. Henley and I faked looks of concern.

“Uhh, we were hoping for something a little more local, a kind of mom-and-pop credit union with no security but, uh, that’s fine. A promise is a promise, can you please come up to the stage, and we’ll- we’ll rob your bank.”

“And while he does that,” I added. “There is someone here tonight, without whom, we would just be 5 magicians working the circuit, trying to get, well, actually, trying to get here.” I walked to the center of the stage with Danny.

“You probably know this man, if not from one of the many, many companies he puts his name on, he is our friend,” We all walked to the front of the stage in the direction that Art was. “he is our benefactor, Mr. Arthur Tressler, please, stand up Art, stand up.” We gestured to Art. “The only man here with the queen’s cellphone number.” Merritt joked. If anyone here were to have her number, it would probably be him.

Tressler was about to sit when Danny stopped him. “Actually, please stay standing Art. I wanna say that when we came to Mr. Tressler, we promised that, as a unit, we could become the biggest name in magic.” Merritt blew a kiss to him. Jack was on the other side of the stage, walking Étienne towards us.

“So we wanted to say thank you. And, by the way, Art, you notice on the sign out front, we made sure we put your name on top.” Henley finished.

“If you turn out to be as good as you think you are, dear girl,” Art replied. “that won’t be necessary much longer.”

“We haven’t done our closer yet, why don’t you watch it and you can decide for yourself.” Merritt went to Étienne and reinforced the hypnosis that I did months prior.

“Ladies and gentlemen, Arthur Tressler!” Henley finished.

“Thank you.” Daniel nodded to the crowd. “And, of course, once again, the Carinal of Clairvoyance, Merritt McKinney.” I quietly laughed as he snapped his fingers by Étienne’s head.

Jack was walking towards them, smiling while lightly shaking a helmet.

Merritt looked at the Frenchman. “Étienne, uh, what Jack is bringing to the stage now is what we in the magic world call a teleportation helmet.” Jack presented the helmet. “You will need to wear this, as it will allow you to literally fold through space and time to your bank in the….8th?” Étienne tilted his head. “9th arrondissement. Once you are there, we will be able to speak with you through this helmet. Now,” Jack put the helmet on his head. “Oh my god that’s beautiful,” Merritt said. “It has the added attraction of being very stylish, it’s about time the French learned from America on that subject.” The audience laughed, and he turned to them. “Isn’t that a beautiful piece of headgear?” They cheered.

Danny, Henley, and I finally walked up to where they were. “Before you go anywhere, can you please pick a card, any card.” Danny held out a deck of cards. He reached for the 2 of hearts like I told him to when Danny yanked the deck back. “Not that card.” Étienne looked confused. “No, it’s, it’s an old American joke, you can take that one. Now, show it to your friends in section B there, but- but not to us.” He held up the card and we all turned around. Then we walked up to him. “Okay, great. So if you could just sign your name there.” Danny handed the Sharpie that I had given him to Étienne, winking at me. “In English, if possible.”

We make sure to not look at the card, even though we already knew what it was.

“Put it in your pocket.” I turned around. “And now, for one tiny detail- “

I reached into my hat and pulled out a blue piece of fabric, and threw it into the wind from the fans that we had placed above us. The crowd gasped as the cloth flew around and unraveled into 3 pieces, and the ‘teleportation’ device came from underneath the ground.

When it was fully above ground, the fans turned off and the fabric just flew away. Everyone clapped, and Danny gestured to me.

Merritt walked Étienne to the device. “Now, Étienne, let’s step into this cockamamie contraption… and I’ll step off it, bonne chance.” Danny and Jack lowered the mesh around the machine. “It’s 11:50 pm here in Vegas; that’s 8:50 am in Paris. Your bank opens in less than 10 minutes.” We began to count up as Henley picked up the button to make the floor open under the device.

“1,”

“2,” Jack said next.

“3.” Henley pressed the button and the floor opened beneath Étienne and he was dropped underground, but everyone else thought that he teleported.

“What the fuck?” Someone said.

The audience gasped, and we pretended to be confused.

“Étienne?” Danny called.

“It wasn’t supposed to happen like that, was it?” I questioned.

“Étienne?”

“I liked that little French guy,” Merritt mumbled. A few audience members laughed, but most were still in shock.

“Where’d he go?” Jack asked.

We heard the sound of static and watched as the screen behind us turned on.

“There- there he is.” Danny pointed to the screen.

It was Étienne’s face. The audience clapped.

“No, no. Please, please.” He turned to the screen. “It’s Daniel Atlas, can you hear me? Étienne, are you okay?”

“Yes.” He replied.

“Perfect. What do you see in there?”

“Money.” He said in disbelief. I couldn’t help but smile. The plan was working.

He picked up some of the Euros. “Is this real?”

“Yeah. It looks like €3 million or so Euros worth.” I added, sounding surprised. Étienne smiled.

“Okay now- now here’s what we're gonna need you to do. I want you to take the card that you signed out of your pocket, and I want you to take the ticket stub from tonight’s show, and I want you to put it right there in the middle of the money.”

Étienne did what he was told. “Now, drop it.”

I smiled at Jack, thinking of the looks on the faces of the people who opened that vault in France; expecting €3 million Euros and instead seeing a playing card and a ticket stub to a _magic show_.

“Now, on the side of your helmet,” Danny continued. “You should feel a button. Now don’t- don’t press it just yet. That button activates and air duct that connects Paris to Las Vegas.” I snorted. That’s just about as dumb as believing that I can mind bend a spoon.

“Okay good, now you can press it.”

“Now Étienne, hold on tight. You might feel a bit of a vacuum.” Jack warned. Merritt and I laughed because this was about to get good.

The vent turned on and started sucking the Euros up. Everyone watched in amazement as Euros started flying around Étienne.

“Oh wait a second,” Danny said. I smirked at him.

“I have a feeling.” I drawled. Henley smirked.

“What’s that feeling, Jill?”

I winked at her. “Everyone’s about to get a few euros richer.”

The whole building erupted into cheers as the money started falling from the vents in the ceiling. They were standing up, trying to grab as many bills as possible. I looked around in silence, just enjoying the moment. Jack laughed, and I ran and hugged him.

“We did it!” I smiled. He and Merritt high fived again, and Henley and I hugged while screaming.

I walked to Danny and kissed him on the cheek before hugging Merritt.

“Thank you Étienne, thank you, everyone!” Danny said after a moment.

“We are the Five Horsemen!” We said in unison.

“Goodnight!” I shouted.

We all grabbed hands and took a bow. I may or may not have grabbed a couple of euros; Jack definitely did, and we walked out to our car. We piled in, and I drove us to our hotel. Now we just have to wait for the cops.


	5. Interrogations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments from you guys honestly make my day. I was bummed about having to go back to school tomorrow (ew) and saw a comment that immediately made me happy. I really appreciate it.

When we got back, I changed into some teal tribal print joggers and a black t-shirt. I did not feel like getting arrested in my outfit from the show, and everyone else followed suit. We all had on more comfortable clothes, and just lounged in the living room.

Danny was looking out the window with his cards in his hands, probably lost in thought, while Merritt was on the couch reading ‘The Savage Detectives’. Jack was in the chair with his feet on the table, and I was sitting across from him in the same position, playing on my phone. Henley was somewhere upstairs packing; the rest of us had finished before the show.

“So,” Jack said. “How long until they get here?”

I just nodded towards the door, and the feds showed up less than five seconds later.

“FBI! HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE EM!” I smirked at Jack.

“What did I tell you.”

“LET’S GO! GET EM UP!!”

“Uno minuto.” Merritt held a finger up and continued to read his book.

Jack lazily lifted his hands, and I put my phone in my pocket. I quickly grabbed my deck of cards off of the table. Danny turned around and lifted his hands in mock confusion.

“Put the book down.” Merritt finally put it down. “Okay, you got me.” He held his hands up in peace signs, and I laughed.

“GET EM UP!” One of the officers screamed at me. I slid the cards into my pocket and held both of my middle fingers up and smiled, sweetly. Henley laughed as she came down the stairs.

“FREEZE! HANDS IN THE AIR!” She gasped. “Do one of you guy’s mind giving us a hand with our bags?”

The rushed and handcuffed us. It was nothing that Henley or I couldn’t get out of, but we cooperated this time.

“Hey, be gentle.” Merritt said. Jack and Danny were just smiling. They were enjoying this. I smirked. Maybe I was too.

“Ooh handcuffs. How kinky.” I winked at the officer who was handcuffing me. “My safe word is ‘moist’, just to let you know.”

The other horsemen laughed at me as we were escorted out of the building. People clapped and cheered for us when we walked by. I bowed as much as I could with this dumbass police officer holding me.

I had no idea where they put our stuff, but they shoved Jack and me into the same car.

“Hey,” I said to the officer. He turned around and scowled at me. 

“Moist.” He just completely disregarded my safe word and put the partition up.

I pulled my legs up and through my arms so my hands were in front of me. Grabbing a bobby pin out of my hair, I bent it in the correct way and picked the lock on the cuffs.

Jack raised an eyebrow at me.

“He ignored my safe word. That’s bad BDSM etiquette.” He laughed at me as I unlocked his cuffs. His feet somehow ended up in my lap and I rolled my eyes at him.

"So, what's the interrogation plan?" He asked while drumming his fingers on his thigh.

"I planned on just being annoying as fuck and probably breaking out. What about you?" He furrowed his eyebrows for a moment before shrugging. 

I slowly clapped. "Wow. Everyone bear witness to the brilliant mind that is Jack Wilder."

"Shut up. They probably won't question me anyway. By the time they finish with you, they'll want us all gone."

"You wound me." I pushed his legs off of me and pulled out the cards that I brought. "I'm bored. Let's play War."

The car ride took forever, but we finally got to the station. I put all my cards back in the box and decided to cuff myself again. I really didn't feel like dealing with pissed off cops with no regards for safe words.

The door on my side was opened by one of the officers and he yanked me roughly out of the car.

"Let go of her or I swear I will shove my foot so far up your ass." Jack glared at the officer who was holding me and I struggled to not laugh. He honestly chose to be overprotective at the worst possible times.

Asshat (as I now called the guy who grabbed me) narrowed his eyes at him. "Did you just threaten an officer?"

"Do something."

"Okay everyone don't get your knickers in a twist. Let's just take a breather and cooperate with the cops Jackson." I smiled at him to calm him down. "The sooner we cooperate, the sooner we can get out of this shithole."

-

They separated all five of us and we each got our own interrogation room. They made sure the cuffs that were attached to two chains were secure, and they left.

That was an hour ago.

I was still shuffling my cards when a man and a woman came in.

“It’s about time.” I sighed. “I was getting pretty restless. I was this close,” I put two of my fingers together. “to picking the lock again.”

“Jillian Wilder. So the sleight boy is your brother? But you’re black. How does that work?” The man said, sitting in one of the chairs across from me. Looking at his badge, I saw that his name was Agent Rhodes.

“Le crétin.” The woman muttered, and I snorted. So she’s French. Probably Interpol. Interesting.

“A grown ass man- how old are you? You look about late thirties. 35, 36, 37” His left eye twitched slightly. “Ahh, 37. So how does a 37-year-old man not know what adoption is?”

He glared at me and opened the file that he was carrying. “So, Jillian- “

“What’s your name?” I interrupted, and nodded at the French lady. I didn't want to have to refer to her later as the Interpol agent.

“Alma.” She shook my hand. “Jill, nice to meet you.” I turned to Rhodes. “And you wonder why you don’t have any friends.”

He ignored me and read me my file. “Parents died when you were 17; your brother was 16. You two just disappeared off the face of the earth and showed back up in a magic show. Says here that you do illusions, sleight, escape, and mentalism.” He shuddered.

“You look a little upset. I assume Merritt already did the mentalism thing so I’ll skip that part.”

“How did the card get into the vault?” He snapped.

“I’ll never tell. I’ll never tell.” I sang, quoting Don’t Say a Word.

He stood up and roughly grabbed my shoulder. I nudged him off.

“Police brutality, much? Fine. I’ll tell you. As far as I understand, when the man from Paris put on the teleportation helmet- “

Rhodes looked at me. “You know I can arrest you, innocent or guilty.”

I raised my eyebrow. “Really? On what grounds? Please try to arrest me for a crime I didn’t commit. I really wanna see how that works for you.” I was just talking to distract him. When he wasn’t paying attention, I took the key to the room from him and put it in my pocket.

When he didn’t respond, I fake smiled.

“You’re dismissed. Nice to meet you, Alma.” She laughed and pulled him out of the room.

Well, I was bored again. Might as well get out of these cuffs. I unlocked them the same way that I did in the cop car with another bobby pin. They really should consider taking those off of people.

I pulled out the key to the room that I stole, and walked out the door, making anyone in the hall fall asleep. Good thing there weren't that many people.

I was about to let everyone out of their interrogation rooms when I realized that that might give them a reason to keep us here. Instead, I watched as the officer interrogated Danny.

“So,” Alma said. “if you had nothing to do with it, then how did the playing card get into the vault?”

“Oh, yes. That would be, what do the kids call it these days? Oh, yes, that’s right. Magic.”

Rhodes grabbed his shoulder the same way he grabbed me. What is it with this guy and brutality?

“Just answer the question, okay smartass?”

“Sorry, sorry.” He slid the deck of cards onto the table, and I smiled.

“You can keep that. Don’t share it with him. As far as I understand it, when the man from Paris put on the magical helmet, I guess- “

“That’s the same thing Wilder’s sister said.” The agent interrupted.

“Really? Well, you know what they say: Great minds think alike.” He smirked. “As I was saying, I guess- “

“Listen to me.” The man cut him off. “If you didn’t rob that bank, then you knew about it, which makes you an accomplice. So if you wanna walk out of here today I suggest you start- “

Danny cut him off this time. “Okay now you listen to me, unless you think there’s a D.A. in the state of Nevada who’d be willing to make sense of this to a jury, then we have a show to perform.” I had to resist the urge to high-five him right then. “And you, Agent Rhodes, have a drawing board to get back to.”

“You are literally begging to be arrested. You know that?”

“If it means you would actually do it, then yeah. But, you won’t. Because if you did, it means that you, and the FBI, and your friends at Interpol, actually believe, at an institutional level, in magic.” Oh, man. If they did that, the press would have a field day. We’d be more famous than we already are.

“The press would have a field day.” He continued, voicing my thoughts. “And we’d be even more famous than we already are, and you guys would look like idiots even more than you already are.” He nodded at Alma. “Well, no, not you. But him. Right?” He turned back to Rhodes. “Listen, you have what we in the business like to call ‘nothing up your sleeve’, and you know it.” He was right. Rhodes had no leverage over us. He would have to admit to believing in magic, and then any further argument from him goes unnoticed.

“You wanna know who sat in that chair before you? Mob bosses, murderers, and thieves. Any you know who put them there? The guy who’s sitting in this chair. So I warn you, I can maintain my resolve much longer than you can maintain that phony arrogance.” I scoffed. His arrogance was anything but phony. “And the instant that you even show the slightest crack in that smug façade, I’ll be there.” I rolled my eyes. How? We were about to get out of this shithole so how? “I’ll be all over you like- “

“Like white on rice?” Danny questioned. “Sorry. That’s unfair. Let me warn you. I want you to follow. Because no matter what you think you might know, we will always be one step, three steps, seven steps ahead of you. And just when you think you’re catching up, that’s when we’ll be right behind you. And at no time will you be anywhere other than exactly where I want you to be. So come close. Get all over me, because the closer you think you are, the less you’ll actually see.” I swallowed. That escalated quickly.

The next thing I knew, Rhodes was lunging at Danny, and he somehow ended up with the cuffs on him. The little snake stole the key. I couldn’t really say anything, though; I did steal the key to the room.

“Something wrong with that soda, miss?” Danny asked Alma.

I bet that the key is in there. She shook the can, and it rattled. I was right, as I usually am.

She opened the Pepsi and poured it out onto the table. I shook my head. What if the soda gets on Rhodes’ phone- I smirked. Smart boy, that Danny is.

“Oh! Shit.” He grabbed the phone, and if you were looking, you could tell that he swapped it for another one in his back pocket. “First rule of magic: always be the smartest guy in the room.”

Rhodes and Alma were coming out, so I ran back to my room and snapped, waking everyone up before I shut the door and put the cuffs back on.

They came back in, with Rhodes looking deflated.

I smelled the air. “Were they giving out Pepsi? I’m hurt that nobody brought me one.”

“Get the hell up, you’re leaving.”

I faked shock. “So soon? What happened to the investigation, agent?”


	6. Just You Wait

We had made it back to Jack and I’s apartment, and, after laughing at the agents, we were discussing our show for New Orleans. We had everything planned out except for stealing the money from Tressler.

“Okay, so I looked into the bank that Tressler uses.” I was laying across Jacks legs, playing on my phone as he sat leaning against the headboard of my bed while doing whatever it is that he does. In the middle of my round of Fruit Ninja a text popped up on my screen.

_Jackie: Soooooo, you and Danny?_

I looked at him out of the corner of my eye and rolled my eyes at him.

_Bye Jack_

Who did he think he was, interrupting my game?

_Jackie: I’m serious, Jillian. What happened in Paris?_

_Nothing, Jack. Jeez._

I was about to just throw my phone across the room when he texted me again.

_Jackie: Just promise me, okay? Promise that you aren’t doing anything with him._

I smirked before I responded.

_I solemnly swear that I am up to no good._

I turned my phone off and smiled until Jack punched me in the shoulder.

“Ow. Shitface.” I mumbled and glared at him.

“Wanna share with the class?” Merritt looked at me suspiciously.

“Nope. I’m good.” I assumed that they hadn’t talked about too much in the time that Jack was being annoying. “To get access to his account, all we have to do is either get his password or find the answers to his security questions, which are just his mother’s maiden name and the name of his first pet.”

“And how are we gonna do that? It might look kinda suspicious if we just ask him.” Merritt replied.

Danny spoke from the corner that he was standing in. “Leave that to me.”

-

_Two days ago, no one heard of these guys, but tonight’s show sold out in 35 seconds._

Instead of flying coach, we were on Tressler plane this time. Me, Jack, Danny, and Art were sitting in the middle of the plane while Merritt and Henley were in the back. I was going over the plan in my head, and felt no ounce of remorse for what we were about to do.

_I think these guys have cracked the secret to show business: give your audience $3 million dollars._

I coughed. “€3 million euros.”

_They’re gonna be the first magicians in history to get laid._

I scoffed. People didn’t care about your profession during sex. A girl I stole from once was a janitor, and you didn’t have to be a mentalist to see that she was very familiar with fornicating.

Danny looked at me, smirked slightly, and looked back out of the window, continuing to play with a coin. Jack watched the little exchange and squinted, looking between Danny and I. He frowned a bit before going back to whatever he was doing.

I moved from my seat to sit by Jack, and I just stared at him with my arms crossed. We just looked at each other for a few seconds before he spilled.

“Okay. Before, I was just joking about you and Atlas, y’know? Like, you aren’t supposed to actually be getting together.” I found myself rolling my eyes again.

“We aren’t getting together, Jack. Calm your tits, okay?”

I guess he got the message, because he muttered “Fine.” And turned around in his chair. Victory was mine. Victory apparently filled the bladder as well, so I got up to use the bathroom. When my business was handled, I looked in the mirror and took a few pictures for Snapchat.

I was about to leave when I heard Merritt talking.

“Well, obviously you have feelings of affection for Daniel. Unrequited and misguided, owing to his lack of emotional availability.”

Now that I thought about it, the feelings were extremely obvious. Earlier, I figured that only me and Merritt had noticed, but Jack and Daniel himself probably have too.

Being nosy made me a bit parched, so I grabbed a cup and got some water from the faucet.

“Consequently, you’re very tightly…. How should I put it? Corked.”

While I struggled to breathe, my water decided that it wanted to come out of my nose. I couldn’t even hear Henley’s response as I was dying of asphyxiation.

“Now, recognizing that you have physical needs not being met, and strictly in the vein of helping a sister out, I invite you to think of me as your personal corkscrew.”

It took everything in my power to not screech right there. I was clutching my stomach as tears rolled down my face. Every breath that I took was a wheeze, and is that what death felt like?

“Wow, thanks. Let me mull over that offer of cheap and meaningless sex.”

“Cheap and meaningless, maybe, but not time consuming.”

I couldn’t handle this discussion anymore. “Are these the type of conversations that you have when no one else is listening?” Wiping tears from my face, I walked back to my seat.

In a little less than an hour we would be in New Orleans for our second show. If the police weren’t upset yet, this one would for sure piss them off. All we need to do is get Art’s bank information. I heard Merritt tell Henley the signal joke that we established, and the plan was in motion.

Danny walked over to them. “Oh, hey Danny. Can I talk to you about my role in the show real quick?” Jack asked.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure.” He said, but he kept walking.

“Hey guys. We got a show to prepare for.”

“Do we now?” Henley questioned.

Merritt stood up and looked Danny in the eyes.

Danny started to walk backwards. “No, no, no, don’t do that. You’re not doing that thing to me. No.” He was fully turned around now, and walking towards Art.

Merritt and Henley followed. “What thing? I’m just looking at you.”

“No, you’re not. I’ve been watching you for a year. I know all of your little tricks.”

“That what they are to you? Tricks?”

“Yes, its gimmicks. It’s Barnum statements. It’s reading the eyes; body language. I get it.”

“If it’s such an easy thing, why don’t you do Henley?”

“Yeah, Danny. Why don’t you do me?” She smirked. I rolled my eyes. She sounded so thirsty. We all got the underlying message there.

“No, you’re too easy. I’ll do Jill.” I bit back a smile.

“No, do me.” Art said. Perfect.

“Oh, yeah. Yeah. Do Art.” Merritt said, sounding surprised.

“Okay.” He moved to stand in front of Art. “Even better. Art.”

“But I warn you, I can be difficult to read when I want to be.” Merritt and I had already read him several times. Danny could even get something if he tried, but for this, we need him to fuck it up.

 “Just stay with me, okay?” We all watched as Art was about to hand us his money.

“So, Art, you were a tough kid. You know, kind of a real rapscallion. You had a dog. A real tough dog. A brutish breed. Like a real… I want to say, Ben the bulldog.” We turned to Art.

“Actually,” He started. “I was a prissy little tot. I had a fluffy white cat called Snuffles.” We all laughed with him, but for different reasons. I laughed at the fact that we were playing him and he had no idea.

“Let me try one. I can do way better than that.” Jack said.

“Let him do it.” I agreed.

“Come on, give me one more time. One more time. Let’s do family. You had an uncle on your mother’s side. He had a real kind of… A real masculine name. A real kind of, salt-of-the-earth… You know, a real stick-it-to-you… Like it was some kind of Paul. Thompson? Was it a Paul…” He sighed. “Okay. You know what, I got nothin’.”

“Nearly though.” Art said.

“Was I?” Danny asked, hopefully.

“Yeah. My uncle’s name Cushman Armitage.” He laughed.

“Really? Snuffles and Cushman Armitage,” He looked at us to confirm that we had the names. “that was your childhood?”

“I certainly hope tonight’s show is gonna be better than this.” Art joked.

Jack, Danny, Merritt, Henley, and I exchanged looks.

“Don’t worry.” I chuckled. “Just you wait.”


	7. Act II

Since I was going with the Zatanna theme, for our second show, I wore her New-52 costume. I wore the same leather boots from our first show with the leather pants and the leather cropped jacket. _Why does she wear so much leather_? It took me a while, but I found the white corset that she wore and the fishnet sleeves.

We were going over the show when someone knocked on the door.

“Pardon the intrusion.”

I looked up to see Thaddeus Bradley. “Great.” I muttered. Of everyone to show up, of course it would be that asshole. He goes around, exposing magicians and their tricks, just for the hell of it.

“What in the blue fuck could you possibly want?” I sighed. I lacked the patience for these type of things.  

“I just wanted to wish you good luck tonight.” He replied.

“Bullshit. How did you even - how did he even get back here?” I turned to Jack and asked. He shrugged his shoulders.

“What, so you can try to expose us later on your little website?”

“And on demand.” At this point, I was 1.84 seconds away from kicking him in the solar plexus.

“That’s not gonna happen.” Henley crossed her arms. Damn straight it isn’t.

“Oh, no? Operating on a special plane because of The Eye? I heard it’s a lovely place. Lots of star shine and moonbeams. Make any magician’s wish come true.” Danny was visibly miffed at that.

“You’ve come a long way- much further than anyone would have expected of a bunch of wannabes and has-beens.”

Merritt grabbed his jacket and stood up. “If by ‘has-been’ you’re referring to me, I just wanna say I’m flattered because I always considered myself a ‘never-was.’ Do you mind if I do a quick read on you?”

Henley and I made eye contact and smirked.

“By all means.”

“Okay, I’m picturing a little boy. He wants to be a great magician someday.” Merritt puts his jacket on. “And though he’s good, he’s not quite good enough. So he ends up at the bottom of the entertainment food chain, feeding off of those who have talent that he never did. Tell me: am I getting close?” I snickered at his serious face.

Danny turned to Thaddeus. “Wait, before you go, I’m working on something new. Do you have a second?” Before he could answer Danny continued, and the other horsemen came to stand with us. “Okay. Name a card.”

“King of hearts.”

“Knew it.” I said. He seemed like a king of hearts kind of guy, or maybe the king of spades.

“Okay.” Danny snapped his fingers by the deck of cards. He then shook it and blew on it.

“It’s up your left sleeve.” Thaddeus said, with a smug smile on his face.

“Is it? No, no I don’t see it up there.” We all checked his sleeve.

“You know; why don’t you check your unnecessary velveteen pocket there?”

He looked in his pocket and pulled out a playing card that had ‘YOU SUCK’ written on it.

“Anyway, thank you so much for coming by, but this is kind of a talent only area, so… “

The dickhead threw his card on the floor. “Break a leg.” And he left.

“Hey, you break something too!” I called after him and laughed.

-

Agent Rhodes and Alma were there, as well as Thaddeus and his assistant, so we had to put on a show for them.

“Good luck, guys.” Henley whispered, and we walked onto our individual rectangles on the stage. I prayed that whoever we were working for knew what they were doing because the feds were for sure about to be up our asses for this one.

_Arthur Tressler presents: Jack Wilder, Henley Reeves, Merritt McKinney, Jillian Wilder, and Daniel Atlas. The Five Horsemen._

The lights shone on us as our names were called, and the crowd cheered. The Savoy was packed, and I watched in awe. Even if what we were doing was kind of illegal, it was still awesome to see how many people came out to see five magicians. Last year, I couldn’t have imagined Jack and I on a stage, in front of an audience like this. Feeling a bit queasy, I controlled my hastening breathing. This wasn’t a time to suddenly start feeling nauseous and anxious. Jack, seeing the unease on my face, mouthed 'you’re gonna be great’ and I gave him a thumbs up. Time to put on my big girl underwear.

“Thank you. Before we begin, we’d like to single out two people in particular; a man and a woman to whom we’d like to dedicate tonight’s performance.” Danny gestured to Rhodes and Alma.

“FBI Agent Dylan Rhodes and the lovely, if somewhat inexperienced, Interpol Agent Alma Dray, everyone.” I finished and smiled as the crowd ‘oohed' and more lights shone on them.

“Yeah, Agent Rhodes has personally vowed to ‘nail us’,” Jack smirked.

“And we encourage him to do so if he has the brains- and the fur.” I chuckled along with some members of our audience.

“What is magic?” Danny asked. We walked out of our places onto the round stage. “Our argument, nothing but targeted deception. So I want you to look. Look as closely as possible. Because the tricks you are about to see may not seem connected.”

People were pulling out phones and cameras to record.

“But we assure you, they are. Is what follows 100 different tricks? Or is it one giant illusion?” He stepped onto the platform with us, and the lights went out to the cheers of the Savoy.

Jack, Merritt, and I quickly went backstage, as Danny and Henley were about to do their first trick. I sat down, tuning out everything else. The deck of cards for my trick was to my left, and I grabbed it, shuffling them. I didn’t think that any of us were prepared to get arrested for whatever we were doing. Danny made us all wear tracking bracelets for the great escape that we were gonna have to do later, but I still worried about anyone getting lost or hurt.

Jack walked over to me and interrupted my train of thought. “Shut up.”

“What?”

“You’re thinking too loud; it’s distracting.” He joked, but I only smiled in response. His face flashed a look of concern.

“What’s wrong? You always laugh at my jokes, even if they’re dumb.”

“I’m just worried about the show.” I summarized.

“Well don’t be. You’re gonna do great, and no one’s gonna get arrested, alright? Now, c’mon. Henley and Danny are wrapping up, and you’re next.”

I hugged him. “Thanks, Jackaboy. And good luck with your trick!” Waiting by the entrance to the stage, I cracked my knuckles. The crowd ‘aah’ed, so Danny must be making the giant bubbles. Henley sauntered by and hugged me briefly. “Good luck girl.”

“Thanks, and you did great.” I rushed. Danny was in position and making another, bigger bubble. I ran from the entrance and dove headfirst into it.

Being inside was a very weird experience. The best way to describe it is that it looked like I was tripping acid. Everything was super bright and some variation of pink, purple, blue, or green. The gasps and claps of the crowd were muffled as I did different flips and poses. Those gasps turned to screams when the bubble popped and I was falling. Even though it was planned, a small scream had found its way out of my mouth.

Danny caught me to the loud applause of the Savoy. “Well hello stranger.” I said in a country accent.

“Fancy seeing you here. Come here often?” He replied.

“Only on the bad days.”

“What’s a nice girl like you doing in a dump like this?”

“Fella did me wrong.”

He smirked. “Bet I could do you better.” He was walking while he carried me, and we had made it to the stage by now. It was time for my trick, and the crowd was sitting down from the standing ovation that they had just given us. I smiled and lightly shoved him backstage before starting my part.

“Hello, New Orleans! How are you liking the show so far?” The crowd cheered. I wanted to talk to them for a bit, so I took the cards out of my pocket, sat down on the edge of the stage, and began to shuffle them.

“A year ago, I never could’ve imagined that two kids from New York who didn’t have parents could possibly be here, but here I am with Jack- I’m adopted, by the way- at a packed house at the Savoy Theatre. How crazy is this?” The audience cheered and clapped.

“You guys probably want to see some magic right? So I’m gonna need two volunteers.” Sweeping my eyes over the theatre, I scanned for the first people who stood out to me.

The first was a man with long hair and a trench coat on. “You, sir!” I called and pointed to him. He slowly walked up the stage, and I realized why he stood out to me. “What’s your name, sir?”

“Remy LeBeau.” He spoke in a Cajun accent, and if it was possible, I would’ve sworn up and down that he was Gambit.

“Remy LeBeau, as in Gambit?” I eyed him.

“Yeah.” He laughed, nervously. “My parents are big fans of comics and stuff. They named me after him.” Okay so he had parents; definitely wasn’t Gambit then.

“Aww. That would’ve been cool to have a badass mutant friend.” I pouted. Maybe he knew how to throw cards. That would still be pretty cool.

“Alright Gambit, pick a second person for me, would ya?” He flushed when I called him Gambit, and I laughed. Glancing backstage, I saw Jack standing by the entrance, waiting for me to finish. I had almost forgotten that we were on a schedule.

Remy had chosen a woman, presumably a friend of his. “What’s your name, Madame?”

“Angie Carter.” I took my cards and fanned them out in my hands.

“Well, Gambit, Miss Carter, would you please pick a card. Show your cards to our lovely audience, but not to me.” He chose the ace of spades and she chose the queen of diamonds. They showed their cards to the audience and looked to me.

“Alright. Everyone remember those two cards. Now, can you two please put your cards together, face down.” The cards stuck to each other, seemingly becoming one card. “Thank you kindly. You can return to your seats now.”

They walked back to their seats. “Now, does everyone remember what these two cards were?” The crowd screamed ‘yes’ in unison. “Great. Now I’m gonna throw these cards, and when I do, I need everyone to look under their seats.” I backtracked to the part of the stage furthest from the audience and threw the cards. They disappeared halfway through the throw. “Now, everyone look under your seats please.” Everyone had the ace of spades and queen of diamonds under their seats. They stood up and cheered as I took a dramatic bow. I waved and walked backstage.

“Told ya that you would do great.” Jack hugged me. He was on next, so I wished him luck and pushed him lightly onto the stage. The couch suddenly looked really inviting, so I face planted onto it and sighed. Danny and Merritt were sitting across from me, and no one spoke for a whole 30 seconds. That had to be a new record. Merritt ruined the silence by standing and saying, “I’m sensing unresolved sexual tension, so I’m just gonna exit.” He back away from us slowly to go talk to Henley. I just rolled my eyes at him.


	8. Act II.5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This update is coming suuuuper late. School has been such a pain and I've had no free time fml. Oh whale, here's chapter...8?

After Merritt left, I went to watch Jack. He was doing two quick card tricks to lead into the main act. He quickly finished up his act, and the intermission started.

“Hey dickhead, can you pass me my laptop?” I smiled sweetly at Jack until he threw the computer.

I barely managed to catch it before glaring at him. “What the fuck, Jack?” He just laughed and walked away.

I was tasked with transferring all of the money to the accounts of the people in the audience. During Katrina, they were insured by Tressler but never received their settlements. The selfish bastard couldn’t seem to spare any of his riches with the people who lost their families and homes.

By the time I was done, Merritt had already gone back on stage.

"At the intermission, we asked you to write down your current bank balance and seal it in an envelope. Now it's time to take those envelopes out. Everyone take 'em out." There was a brief pause while everyone pulled out their envelopes. 

"Now, everybody, shout out your name. All at once. Go. Shout 'em out." The entire audience screamed their names.

"Clement? Frannick?"

"Yeah! Up here!" a man yelled, sounding very distant. "Oh. Way up there. Okay."

Another pause. "Dina? Robertson?"

"That's me.” a woman said. “Okay. Names. Names. Let's go," Merritt ordered. The crowd screamed out their names again.

"Josepha Hickey?"

"That's me!" another woman responded.

"Josepha, I want you to focus on your balance and count from one to ten out loud," he instructed.

Josepha looked skeptical, but she went along with his commands.

"One, two, three, four, five-” Merritt cut her off. “Stop. Is the first digit five?”

"Yes.” There were a few gasps from the audience.

“Do it again. This time, faster.”

"One, two, three, four, five, six-“

Again, Merritt cut her off. "Stop. Six. Again."

Josepha began counting once more. "One, two-"

“Josepha, is your bank balance five hundred and six-two dollars as of today?” Merritt asked.

"Yeah," she said in a dejected voice." That's what I got. I just smiled. Her face is going to be hilarious when she realizes that she’s $70,000 richer.

Merritt smirked. "Unfortunately, you're wrong." The crowd murmured in surprise, and Merritt just turned towards the next person.

"Okay, Dina, um,” He paused. “One, four, seven.” Dina seemed impressed.

"Yeah," she replied.

“You think it is, but in fact, you, too, are wrong.”

Merritt continued. “Uh, Clement. You do not have $6,500 in your account. In fact, everybody stand up. Everybody. Yeah. Put your envelopes to your forehead. Focus on your number.” He began to look surprised and confused.

“This is... Oh, dear. Just as I feared. Oh, this is strange. You know, I hate to say this, but you're all wrong. Every last one of you is dead wrong about what you think is in your account.” The crowd murmured in confusion.

I waved to Danny and Henley as they got up to join Merritt on the stage. I had opted to not be out on stage at the beginning of this part.

“Okay, you can sit down now,” Danny whispered something in Merritt's ear. “Oh! Oh, yeah. I almost forgot. This evening would not be possible if it weren't for our great benefactor Arthur Tressler.”

“Big applause. Big applause.” Danny spoke as he clapped. “Art, actually, why don't you come up on stage for the finale?”

Merritt and Henley agreed and goaded him onto the stage. Once Tressler made it up there, Henley walked up to him.

"Now, Art, did you fill out your envelope?" He shook his head. Well, no need. We've done it for you.

Jack winked at me before carrying a giant envelope onto the stage.

“Now, Art, I took a guess. North of 140. Am I right?" Merritt asked. Tressler smirked, and Merritt clarified. "That's a 140 million, by the way"

“I'm sorry, Merritt. How can he be right about his balance and everyone else be wrong?" Henley asked, feigning ignorance. I swear that woman could be an amazing actress one day.

"I think possibly because he, too, is wrong. Everybody, take out your paper. And using the flashlight under your seat, start to warm up that paper. I think your correct balance begins to appear.”

Jack came back and grabbed the big flashlight and I laughed at him. He rolled his eyes at me and walked back out.

“Now, Art, don't worry, we have a flashlight you." A few audience members laughed.

"Look." Danny pointed towards Art’s balance.

“What's going on there, Daniel?" Merritt asked.

“Wait. This is weird. A second ago, it said a hundred and forty-four million, five hundred seventy-nine thousand, six hundred fifty-one. But now- now it says seventy thousand dollars less.” Danny explained, sounding genuinely confused.

"Josepha, can you stand up?" Merritt requested.

The woman quickly stood up.

“Now, what is your new number?”

“Seventy thousand, five hundred and sixty-two dollars now in my account," she read off the paper and the crowd clapped.

“Is it possible that Josepha's balance went up the exact amount that Art's went down?” Henley asked.

Jack spoke next. "Hey. Check it out. It's happening again.”

Is it?" Danny asked as the numbers changed again. Everyone gasped while Jack waved the flashlight back and forth across the back of the check and I laughed quietly. Henley looked at the check.

“Wow, it is. Art's balance has gone down another 280K.” Merritt called out to the other woman.

"Dina Robertson? What did yours say?” She stood up. "Two hundred eighty-one thousand, four hundred and seventy-seven dollars.” Danny and Henley sat the check down, and Jack did the same with the flashlight.

"We have a confession to make,” Henley started. “She's right, we lied about something,”

“None of you were chosen at random," Danny added.

“All of you have one thing in common,” Merritt went on, and Henley spoke after him. "Everyone in this room was a victim of the hard times that hit one of America's most treasured cities."

That was my cue, and I walked out while speaking. “Some of you lost your houses, your cars,”

Merritt went on next. "Your businesses,".

"Your loved ones," Danny added.

"But all of you were insured by the same company.”

"Tressler Insurance." All five of us spoke and pointed to Tressler, who was looking extremely confused.

You were abandoned," Merritt shouted. "You were loopholed-“ Henley started. “-out of your settlements," Jack finished for her.

Tressler turned to me looking calm as ever. "This all for show. Correct?” I smirked at him.

“Define ‘show’.” He looked like he was going to speak again before a member of the audience jumped up.

"Whoa! Whoa! I've got $82,000 in my bank account! It says it right here on my cell phone! Everybody, look at your cell phones right now! Everybody!”

The sounds of different phone notifications filled the Savoy. I laughed at Josepha’s face. She was exactly as shocked as I imagined her to be. Tressler was looking equally as shocked, but not for the same reasons.

He turned to Merritt, obviously pissed. "Hey! Did you do this?” Jack walked past him towards me. "How could we, Art? We don't have your password." We high-fived and Henley walked past Art towards the back of the stage.

“We'd need access to information we could never get our hands on,” she told Tressler.

"Yes, security questions, for instance, like, I don’t know, your mother's maiden name or the name of your first pet,” Danny said, joining Henley and Jack.

“Where would we get that information, Art?” Merritt questioned and followed the others.

“You would certainly never tell us.” I smirked as he tried to lunge for me and made my way to the others. His ankle was chained to the floor and we all laughed at him. Merritt faced him one last time.

“Hey, we left you the jet and the Rolls.” I smiled at Tressler’s defeated face. Serves him right for conning those people out of their money. Karma is one hell of a bitch.

I could hear Agent Rhodes screaming ‘stop’, and knew that the interesting part was about to begin. Danny waved at him as he screamed ‘freeze’. We all smiled as various people from the audience yelled ‘quarterback’ and ran after Rhodes.

Five ropes dropped down and I quickly tied a foot knot to have a better grip.

“We are The Five Horsemen, goodnight.” We chorused, and the ropes pulled us up as the hypnotized volunteers tackled Rhodes.

We ended up on the balcony of the theater and took a moment to get ourselves together.

“Okay, guys. This is essentially act 2.5. Everyone ready?” I looked at everyone and they all nodded. “Race ya to the rendezvous.” I smirked and took off down the fire escape and onto the street.


	9. Spotted

Rhodes most definitely had his people coming after us so we had no time to waste. Danny was getting chased by Alma and Jack was gonna slide the tracker into Rhodes’ pocket so he would essentially be tracking himself.

It took a surprisingly short amount of time for Rhodes to start following us, but we were as good as free in the Mardi Gras crowd. The timing of this show was perfect. There were way too many civilians, and with us all split up, the FBI had no chance of catching us.

I had decided to stay close to Jack because Lord knows the boy seems to attract trouble. Smart decision too, because Rhodes caught him slipping the tracker in and was chasing him. Jack was trying to blend in with the crowd but stuck out like a sore thumb with the police uniform on. Once again I was going to have to save his ass.

I ‘borrowed’ one of the police cars that an officer had conveniently left the keys in and when some necklaces were dropped on Rhodes, I tapped him with the car (which took a surprising amount of control on my part) and when he got on top I ran after Jack. He seemed to have noticed me but turned back to the tracker like he was trying to find Jack, which was odd. I didn’t dwell on it for too long, though.

“I’m not always gonna be able to cover your ass, Jackaboy.” I breathed as I caught up to my brother. He was leaning against a building about a block away from the rendezvous.

“So I better use you while I can then, sister,” He smirked and started walking. “Besides, all’s well that ends well.”

“Guess so.”

We walked in a comfortable silence, and when we finally got to the run-down apartment complex that we had stashed all our plans in, Henley and Merritt were waiting for us. They were sitting on a couch but stood when we walked in.

Henley immediately questioned where Danny was and I squinted at her. Her painfully obvious feelings were getting painfully annoying. He obviously didn’t want her anymore so she needed to tone it down a bit.

Jack brought me out of my thoughts by elbowing me. Hard. I turned to hit him back but he raised an eyebrow and whispered to me.

_You’re glaring_

I nodded gratefully and turned back to Henley.

“We don’t know. Last time I saw him he was being chased by Interpol. He’ll show up eventually; stop worrying.” I walked to the couch and collapsed onto it. I never got used to running from the police.

Henley was sputtering trying to claim that she didn’t care, but anyone could see right through her. I chose to ignore her and play some music on my iPod. Stretching out on the old, dusty couch, I fell asleep to Drake’s voice.

-

When I woke up, Danny was sitting on the end of the couch. It looked like he was reading something on his phone, and he was completely focused on whatever it was. He didn’t notice that I was up, so I smirked and kicked him and he fell to the ground.

“What the fuck?” He yelled from the floor. I laughed at him until he pulled me down on top of him. After lightly jabbing him in the ribs I began to stand up, but he pulled me down again and started to tickle me.

“You are such an asshole!” I breathed through my pained laughter. He just grinned and rolled on top of me. Not even ten seconds later the door opened.

“We brought-“ Jack stopped mid-sentence when he noticed the position that Danny and I were in. It probably looked really bad, if Henley’s facial expression was anything to go off of. It was a weird mixture of hurt, anger, and defeat. Merritt just smirked before walking and sitting on the couch.

“Seems like you two are having fun.”

Jack narrowed his eyes at the two of us (who were, for some reason, still on the floor) before setting the food on the table and running his hands over his face.

“I don’t even wanna know what’s going on here.”

“It’s not what it looks like.” Danny rushed before standing and dusting himself off. I rolled my eyes and sat up.

“That’s what they always say when it’s exactly what it looks like.”

“So is it what it looks like?” Henley asked with her eyes trained on Danny.

“Now it just looks like Atlas broke your heart or something. If you’re referring to the previous situation, then it was what it looked like, but not what you’re thinking.” I said. Jack sighed and Henley cut her eyes at me.

“Is there something going on here that I should know about?” She asked, tersely.

“No,” She relaxed slightly, and I smirked. “Because if something was going on, it wouldn’t be any of your business.”

She furrowed her eyebrows but before she could say anything, Jack put his hands on my shoulders.

“Damn, J. You need coffee. Let’s go get that.” Merritt moved to comfort Henley or whatever, but she stormed off to who knows and who cares where. Danny was left in the room alone while Jack and I went into the kitchen.

He made our coffee in silence and I replayed what just happened in my head. Danny tickled me, the remainder of our little group walked in, Henley was upset because Danny doesn’t want her anymore, and I added fuel to the metaphorical fire. In hindsight, throwing in that bit about him breaking her heart was probably unnecessary, but what am I if not petty?

Jack sat the mug in front of me and sighed again.

“What?”

“Jill. Why did you say that to Henley?” I took a sip before answering.

“Her pining was annoying.” He raised an eyebrow at me before speaking again.

“Is it the pining, or the fact that she’s pining after Danny?”

“It’s definitely just the pining. He doesn’t feel that way about her, so she needs to just stop.”

There were about thirty seconds of tense silence before he spoke again.

“How stupid do you think I am?” He questioned, interrupting the silence, and I took another sip.

“Very.” He laughed before getting serious.

“If he hurts you, I’ll kill him.” I scoffed at him. Jack wasn’t capable of murder. The worst crime that he’s committed was that theft from the French bank, and we all did that.

“The worst you could do is steal all of his money or something. Besides, I won’t be in the position for him to hurt me.” He rolled his eyes before downing the rest of his coffee and tossing the mug into the sink.

“Whatever you say, sister.” He hugged me and went to walk back into the room that Danny was in. He stopped in the doorframe and turned around.

“But seriously. If he hurts you, there will be problems.” I tipped my mug towards him in acknowledgement and he walked out.


	10. Burn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I usually try to update around the first of every month, but school is just ugh. Welp. Here it is.

After that situation was resolved, (resolved as in Henley wasn’t speaking to me and I was indifferent), we all headed back to Jack and I’s apartment to finish the next step of our plan.

The place was surprisingly intact; as if the police hadn’t even been in there. The fact that the FBI didn’t have the place closed off was actually sort of worrying. Why hadn’t they searched it already? It was almost as if they didn’t really want to find us.

I was pulled from my thoughts by Danny throwing Rhodes’ phone to the ground and smashing it with his heel. I was helping Jack throw all of our plans into the fireplace. We had to burn every scrap of paper with any information from our shows, including things like Tressler’s bank information and the names of the people we chose as volunteers. Merritt was looking out of the window for police and Henley was typing on the computer.

“The firewall’s down. Do they know about this?” She asked.

“They who?” Danny asked, tersely as he continued taking the phone apart.

“’They’, ‘them’, whoever we’re working for.” She replied, turning around slightly.

“Who are we working for?” Merritt questioned, as he turned away from the window and brought some more papers over to me. “And are we prepared to go to jail for them?”

I took the papers from him and threw them into the fire. Jack turned to me, looking a bit nauseous.

“Stop being paranoid.” Danny shook his head and rolled his eyes.

“It really does happen.” Merritt insisted. Danny turned to him, agitated.

“It happened to you. Doesn’t mean it’s gonna happen to us.”

“Guys, I don’t know if I can do this, alright? I don’t wanna go to jail, you know?” Jack spoke up, gripping the papers in his hands with tights fists. I nudged him lightly.

“Jack-“

“Then don’t screw up.” Danny cut me off and handed him more of our old plans. “You’re always talking about wanting to be treated like an adult. Now might be a good time to start acting like one.”

“Hey. Don’t talk to him like that.” I glared and pushed Danny away from Jack. “You need to bring it down several notches.”

“If your brother starting acting like an adult this wouldn’t be a problem.” Henley rolled her eyes. I dug my nails into my palms trying to calm down.

“Look. You might have a problem with me, but you do not talk about my brother. Period.” I put as much venom into my voice as possible and glared at her before snatching more papers and throwing them into the fireplace. She scoffed and turned back to the computer.

“Just stick with the plan. Stay here and burn it all.” Danny said after a moment of awkward silence. Jack nodded and walked over to me.

“Jack. No one is going to jail, okay? You’re gonna pull this off, and we’re gonna finally be in The Eye.” He smiled at me and nodded, but I could tell that he was still uncertain.

I was about to say something else before Merritt’s voice cut me off.

“I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

“I don’t know what you would do anywhere else.” Danny raised his head and glared. I could tell that everyone doubting the plan was starting to piss him off.

“I’m here for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. That’s it. Then I’m gone.” Merritt slammed some more papers down.

“You can do whatever you want when this is over, Merritt. But until then, you stick to the plan.” Henley sneered, and I raised my eyebrows in surprise. Who knew that she could be so hostile?

“Attitude, attitude.” I whispered to Jack and he laughed.

Danny went to the window and his eyes widened. “Uh, guys. They’re here.”

“Shit.” Jack mumbled as he ran his hands through his hair nervously. We weren’t done burning the plans and there was no way he was going to be able to finish while dealing with whoever the FBI sent in there.

“New plan. I’m staying with Jack. I’ll just get a different car and catch up with you guys.” I rushed. Danny shook his head. In disbelief.

“No way. Someone might see you. It’s too risky.” Henley rolled her eyes and I scoffed in annoyance.

“Are you really trying to change the plans that we all agreed on months ago?”

“Nobody’ll see me. Jack will deal with the agents and I’ll just finish burning the plans.” I ignored her and threw more of our notes into the crackling fire.

“Okay, let’s do it.” Merritt walked out of the apartment, followed by Henley and Danny. He looked back one last time before closing the door.

Jack and I ran around the room throwing anything that looked like it had information on it into the growing fire. I could hear the FBI kicking people’s doors down, and it was only a matter of time until they got to us.

The door creaked and I looked at Jack. He looked scared, and I’m sure my expression mirrored his. Another door creaked, so I assumed that there were two agents in our apartment.

Jack scrambled to the top of the bookshelf and I hid behind the chair in the corner as soon as Rhodes entered the main room. He looked around cautiously with his gun up but stopped to look at one of our models, and that was when Jack quietly left the room.

Not even 30 seconds later, the sounds of the garbage disposal and muffled screams entered the room. I stifled a laugh as Rhodes turned and ran towards the kitchen. When he left, I got up and continued throwing the remainder of our documents into the flames.

Dylan and Jack had brought their fight into the study, and that was my signal to go. I slipped out of the door and jumped into the trash chute.

I ran up the rusted ladder and onto the busy street. The FBI were obviously all up and down the area. There were too many black cars for it to be a coincidence. A woman had just gotten out of her car with her keys in her back pocket. I bumped into her and stole them, and got into her Ford Mustang. I could see her screaming in the rearview mirror, and I laughed.

My thoughts drifted back to the FBI. Whoever we were working for always seemed to be a step ahead of them. There was no way that this wasn’t and inside job. Or our employer had someone on the inside. Either way, something was rotten in the state of Denmark.

I drove onto the 59th street bridge and pulled up beside the taxi that I knew Danny was in. I laughed at his fake mustache and he winked at me before he swerved in front of the car that Rhodes was in. Jack swerved in the same lane and Danny moved over so Merritt’s bus could move in next. I slowed down to get behind Rhodes and Alma as to avoid the crash of the car that they thought was Jack’s.

As the car rolled down the street, the five of us all drove away from the FBI and the crash of the car with a corpse in it.


	11. Harbinger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here starts the beginning of the end.  
> I haven't updated in forever and I do apologize for that. Exams are wrapping up so these last few chapters should come out fairly quickly.

The feds were completely distracted by the crash, (which was maybe a testament as to why they couldn’t catch us; they were too caught up with what was right in front of their faces) so no one noticed two cars, a taxi, and a bus pulling up to a totally not suspicious warehouse.

All of us weren’t really needed for this step, but with the police up our asses, it was better to stay together so one of us didn’t get caught and blow the whole plan.

I got out of my car and jogged over to Merritt, Henley, and Danny, who were removing their respective disguises.

“Totally digging the pornstar mustache, Atlas.” I smirked. He quickly ripped it off and I laughed as he winced. Henley rolled her eyes at me and I resisted the urge to snap at her. Jack would want me to at least pretend to be civil, and I am nothing if not a great actress.

“Let’s get this show on the road.” I mumbled as we all walked into the warehouse. It was almost completely deserted, and if we came across anyone, Merritt hypnotized them.

We quickly got to the vault. It was extremely convenient that the room was mostly white, so the reflection would be believable.

“Let’s just hope that nobody gets too close to this ‘wall’.” Merritt mused. We all stood in silence for a few more moments until Danny clapped his hands.

“Now we have to put the balloons into the other safe out back.”

-

I shoved the last balloon into the safe gently, huffing. Several of them had popped, and Merritt and Danny made no show of hiding their amusement. Henley just rolled her eyes again, like it was my fault they had popped. The two men noticed the obvious tension but didn’t say anything.  

“We should get out of here,” I remarked, shutting the safe and putting the fake lock on. “The agents will be here any minute, and we need to film our video.”

The bus would be too obvious, so we all just got in the car I ‘borrowed’ to get back to Jack and I’s apartment. Danny sat in the passenger seat, leaving Henley and Merritt in the back. It was obvious as to who was sitting behind me, considering the kick that I would feel every two minutes.

“I don’t know what your issue is, and frankly I don’t care, but if you don’t stop kicking my damn seat like a petulant child I will not hesitate to stop this car and forcibly remove you from it!” Danny looked at me in shock and everyone was silent. I smiled. “Thank you, Henley.”

Merritt snorted. “C’mon! I think we all know where the problem lies. She’s jealous because-“ Henley slapped her hand over his mouth and glared. Danny looked confused and I just laughed.

“This is going to make for one interesting conversation later.”

-

After a somewhat awkward car ride, we got back to the apartment. I opened up my laptop and set a timer for it to start recording in ten seconds.

I quickly sat between Danny and Merritt, with Henley on Danny’s other side. Of course, she had to be by him.

“Everybody put their sad faces on. It’s go time.” The laptop started recording and I spoke first.

“More than anything in his life, my baby brother wanted to be the most famous magician who ever lived.” I sniffled and frowned, pretending to be sad. I decided to say this part because it would be way more believable for me to be the one getting choked up, being his sister. “I can’t say he achieved that, but I do hope wherever he is, it is full of magic. But the point is-“ I teared up and coughed. “Sorry. The point is-“

Danny put his arm around my shoulder to ‘console’ me. “The point of why we are here is to say that we are not- we cannot quit now.”

“We’ve started something bigger than all of us. We have to finish it.” Merritt stated.

“Remember the name Jack Wilder when you see us live, 5 Pointz, Queens, 7:00.” Henley finished. I got up and grabbed my laptop, edited the video, and then posted it. Now all that was left to do was make the fake money and put on one hell of a show.

“Okay, so I’m going to make the money with our faces on it. Y'all can do whatever.” I moved my laptop to another desk by the printer and opened a document to design the money on. All I had to do was edit our faces onto a Google Images picture of some dollar bills.

While I was photoshopping, I was just thinking about all of the recent events. Everything had happened so fast. It felt like just yesterday when I was stealing to pay rent and support my brother, and now I’m successfully evading the letter agencies with three almost strangers.

I was most conflicted about Danny. When I had met him, I had many preconceived notions about him (most of which have yet to be refuted), but now I see that there’s another side to him too. But we’d have a moment and the next day he acted like we were complete strangers. And they say women are confusing.

Speaking of women, Henley was another problem that I had to solve. It was glaringly obvious that she still had feelings for Atlas, and he didn’t return them. The thought of her being jealous of me made me laugh. There was no reason for her to take her anger out on me. It wasn’t like I purposefully tried to take Danny; things just happen.

I had finished designing the money and decided to print about 600 sheets, with 10 bills on each sheet. Each of us would have 120 pages with our faces on it. I had just pressed print when Henley walked over to me.

“What do you want?” I crossed my arms.  I didn’t feel like dealing with her petty insults.

“I just came to apologize.” She smiled slightly and sat beside me.

“You came to…. apologize? Forgive me if I don’t exactly believe you.”

She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “Look. I know I’ve been acting like a bitch lately. It’s because I have feelings for Danny-“

“Shocker.”

“-and I see how he looks at you. He might be bad at showing it but he does like you.” She smiled sadly and I almost felt bad for her.

“I guess I’m sorry for snapping at you earlier but kicking my chair, really?” I smirked to let her know that I was just joking. At the end of the day, I really did like Henley and would rather have her as a friend than not.

“Yeah… that was a bit childish.” She laughed, which made me laugh. Danny and Merritt walked in and we were both on the floor laughing. They looked at each other and slowly backed out of the room.

-

We were inside the building at 5 Pointz, each of us facing a microphone and a camera. I was bouncing on the balls of my feet in excitement. The crowd was crazy; their screams were almost deafening. Knowing the FBI was watching us just made it even more thrilling.

“Jill, calm down.” Danny raised an eyebrow at me. I probably looked like a kid on a sugar rush.

“I’m sorry, but this is amazing! Do you know what we are about to do? We are about to accomplish what nobody has ever done!” I gestured wildly.

Merritt laughed and checked his watch. “It’s seven.”

“It’s your time to shine, Danny boy.” He smiled at me and looked like he was about to say something, but decided against it. He pressed the button to turn his mic on and I heard the crowd go silent at the sight of his projection.

“What is magic? Magic is deception, but deception designed to delight, to entertain, to inspire.” The crowd cheered again.

“It is about belief-“

“-faith-“ Merritt spoke.

“-trust.” Henley finished. I took a deep breath and turned my mic on.

“Without those qualities, magic, as an art form, would no longer exist.”

Henley seemed to stand up straighter. “But what happens if these qualities are not used for their higher purpose? And instead, they’re used to cheat, lie-”

“-for personal gain, or for greed. Then it’s no longer magic.”

“It’s crime.” Merritt winced.

“So tonight, for our final act, you’re gonna help us set a few things right.” I gestured to the camera and the crowd screamed. We all switched our cameras off at the same time.

Merritt rubbed his hands together. “Showtime.”

Danny snapped his fingers and we walked to the elevator, leaving the microphones for the FBI to eventually find. Sooner or later they would figure out that they were being played.

Henley and Merritt walked ahead, leaving Danny and me to walk together. Even though I knew how we felt about each other, I didn’t want to be the first one to say anything about it. It was irrational, but still.

“So,” I started. “this is it.”

“Yeah.” He mumbled.

“What are we gonna do after this?”

He turned to me, looking nervous. “Do you want to- I mean, after this whole thing- we don’t have to right now… or ever, if you don’t want me- I mean-“ My laughter cut him off.

“Hey.” He said, looking hurt. I reached over and grabbed his hand. “Yes, I like you. Yes to whatever you were going to say.” He smiled at me and we held hands until we got to the elevator. When we arrived, each of us stood in a different corner. There was a comfortable silence until Merritt spoke.

“Daniel?”

Danny looked up at him. “Yeah?”

“As our, let’s call it, year of living dangerously comes to a close, in a rare moment of vulnerability, I’d like to express a sentiment to you about our relationship.”

“Okay.” Danny replied with laughter in his eyes.

“Well, when I first met you, I thought you were kind of a……”

“… dick?” I finished for him.

“Dick.” He nodded at me and Danny laughed.

“And?”

“No, that’s it.”

“That’s very nice. I’m touched.” Danny was holding back a smile.

“Yeah. Just from the heart.”

“Well, I didn’t tell you where I was touched.”

“Oh, you.” Henley and I both laughed before she spoke again.

“Oh, God. What are we gonna do when this is over?”

I looked at Danny to see that he was already looking at me.

“We’re on our own. Our instructions run out after the show.”

I leaned my head back against the elevator wall.

“Even if there is no ‘Eye’, if we were completely played and we spend the next twenty years in jail, then I just want to say that-“

“I know.” Danny said, cutting me off. “Me too.” We smiled at each other before the moment was interrupted by Merritt.

“Woah, little too sentimental for me.” He turned around to face the wall and we all laughed.

Whatever we decided to do after this, we would be doing it together.

**Author's Note:**

> Drop some comments of your opinions :)


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